


Mirror mirror

by birdroid



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Not Beta Read, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 14:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19252678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdroid/pseuds/birdroid
Summary: Mirrors always show her only the dead.





	Mirror mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Written in Russian by me, as birdroid. Translated to English by me.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me who will die tonight.

I tilt the translucent tea-colored vial over my palm, and out of it, almost shyly, falls a pale pink pill. It is tiny, smaller than my shirt buttons, but its price tag is as of a three-piece suit. The side effects section says it may cause a lethal outcome. I put a pill on my tongue and then wash it down with a glass of filtered water - the aftertaste feels like I've been eating stale oranges from a dumpster all night long.

You would do just about anything to stop seeing the dead in the mirrors.

The clockface covering almost all the space of the smartphone display shows 6:50 a.m. Having breakfast right after Seroquel is as risky as wearing a white pair of tight pants during periods, as you might throw up and there would go all the money you've spent both on the pill and the food. And therefore, I head right to my changing room.

I dress into my usual set of a t-shirt, so washed out that I had to come up with an excuse about following latest fashion trends, and a pair of dark gray denim pants inherited from my older brother. My black-and-white striped socks remind me of prison inmates uniform from old movies, and whenever I feel down they feel heavy as if I am wearing iron shackles around my ankles instead of a pair of Zara socks. Whenever I get better, I tell myself: "You look like that zebra cheerleader from that Zoo cartoon".

Today I feel down.

My make-up collection is as scarce and poor as a vegan's lunch. Just looking at it makes me drown in self-pity. The other girls, the girls who can look at their own reflections without any fear, the girls who can afford spending hours applying eye-liners, blushers, and lipsticks, I will envy them until the very day I draw my last breath. I will envy those lucky girls, who take their sweet time fixing their make-up, sulking at their own reflections, washing away the result, and then applying everything all over again, probably thinking that they have done the job better the first time.

I wish I had their problems.

But then again, my task is much more simple: apply your makeup before your reflection changes into an image of a man whose face is a mess of bones and blood, or into an image of a child, still, with purple traces of a noose around their neck. Apply mascara before your eyes turn into empty eye sockets. Smooth your skin tone before you notice you have no skin in the first place.

My crazy grandmother believes I was cursed when I was a child; my parents think I suffer from schizophrenia. I don't know which is true. I know only that pills do help, and after finishing course of treatment I can forget for a while about my visions, as well as about people who one day will show up in my reflections first and in news reports later, among other people who have died in accidents, mass shootings or have gone missing.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me why are you doing this.

To this day I still cherish the hope of getting used to it, I hope I would stop taking it hard, but this hasn't happened yet. Death is always a tragedy, it's always scary and I still hesitate to glance at the mirror even around Halloween, when everybody dresses up as monsters, the undead, or as Micky Mouse. Maybe I should open up a funeral house since I meet my future clients in some sense anyway. Maybe it's not too late to apply to medical school and become a forensic scientist one day.

I don't know.

I finish applying mascara without any accidents so far. I still see only my reflection in the mirror, and it wouldn't really hurt if I commemorate such luck by applying angelic pink lipstick as well. All seems well - or, too well - and I don't feel even sick after taking the pill. I pick up my jacket, my handbag, I check if all the light are off and then head outside.

There aren't too many people at the bus stop. An elderly couple, a high school student, and me. It's either bus drivers are making a strike, or there's a gap half-mile wide that prevents them from getting here. Smartphone clock shows it's 7:30 a.m. already. Has the route been changed, and I totally missed it out in the local news?

I turn to the elderly.

"Excuse me, have you seen the 43rd passing by?", I ask them.

They look at each other, and then they stare at me.

"There's only one bus passing here", replies the elder woman, dressed up in a floral one-piece one can only see now in the Soviet era movies.

I hear the brakes squeaking behind. I turn around and see a long white bus, and across it, a line typed in huge thick letters: "A lethal outcome".

And I have been wondering why I saw just my own reflection in the mirror this morning.


End file.
